Having promoted Los Angeles as a market for fine art with a public gallery for twenty years and, in my capacity as the producer of twenty-six art fairs in Los Angeles (forty-nine in total) I find myself in the difficult position of having to cancel artLA 2011.

What we had hoped would be a cooperative effort acknowledging the vibrant and distinguished history of Los Angeles’s rich cultural heritage, was becoming lost in a myriad of multiple art fairs that became the competing art fairs.  And that’s not what artLA is about.

It has always been our mission to support the Los Angeles art community and the galleries exhibiting at artLA. We want to adhere to that standard and didn’t want our wonderful program of installations, screenings, lectures and panels to get lost in the cacophony of so much activity spread out over so much of the city for so short a time.

Although the city's history is lush with accomplishment, the reality is that Los Angeles cannot support so many art fairs, happening all of a sudden at the same time during the opening weekend of Pacific Standard Time.  With so many wondrous exhibits available, collectors dance cards will be filled with multiple museum openings, tours of installations and the  overload of galas, cocktail parties, collector and artist receptions.

Pacific Standard Time begins the narrative of our cultural heritage that hopefully will continue for many years in gallery and museum programs.  artLA projects will present its program of installations, screenings and panel discussions over the coming months - at photo l.a. in January, and throughout 2012 - at other venues.  We trust they will entertain and inform the community of our city’s amazing story.

Los Angeles is deserving of an art fair that is respectful of the city and its long and distinguished history. We believe that fair is artLA, which will continue to promote contemporary art to Angelinos and L.A. art to the world when it returns in 2012 at a different time and location.

Stephen Cohen